a magistracy, through the influence of his friend, Monckton Milnes, in which case he would have followed the precedent of the author of " Tom Jones," who was a magis trate at Bow-street. Thackeray is never happier then when describing the Bohemian, journalistic-legal life which centres in the Inns of Court. Glimpses of this kind of life he gives us again and again in his books, but the fullest and best description is, of course, to be found in "The History of Arthur Pendennis." Let the layman who wishes to understand the ways of an Inn of Court as they were in the middle of the century, and, indeed, mu tatis mutautis, as they are to-day, read chap ter thirty in "Pendennis." And if any member of the bar has attained to the years of discretion without having made the ac quaintance of the same chapter, let him re pair the omission as soon as possible. It is difficult for the ardent Thackerayan to speak of " Pendennis " without enthusiasm. The characters are so life-like that they become the reader's friends, and one resents as a personal insult any depreciatory reference to them. For our present purpose we need only slightly indicate the plot. Arthur Pen dennis comes up to London to make his way in the world. He decides to read for the bar, joins the " Upper Temple," and takes chambers in " Lamb court " with his chum, George Warrington. The description of Lamb court must appeal to those who know the Temple in November. "If it was dark in Pall Mall, what was it in Lamb court? Candles were burning in many of the rooms there — in the pupil-room of Mr. Hodgeman, the special pleader, where six pupils were scribbling declarations under the tallow; in Sir Hokey Walker's clerk's room, where the clerk, a person far more gentlemanlike and cheerful in appearance than the celebrated counsel, his master, was conversing in a patronizing manner with the managing clerk of an attorney at the door; and in Curling the wig-maker's mel
ancholy shop, where, from behind the feeble glimmer of a couple of lights, large serjeants' and judges' wigs were looming drearily, with the blank blocks looking at the lamp-post in the court. Two little clerks were playing at toss-halfpenny under that lamp. A laundress in pattens passed in at one door, and a newspaper boy issued from another. A porter, whose white apron was faintly visible, paced up and down. It would be impossible to conceive a place more dismal." This is the introduction to what we like to think is the most fascinating picture of Bohemian life in the language. Chapter thirty is full of portraits of typical Templars, most of whom are familiar to us. The great parliamentary counsel on the ground floor, "who drives off to Belgravia at dinner-time, when his clerk, too, becomes a gentleman, and goes away to entertain his friends "; Doomsday, who has lived fifty years in the Inn, and whose brains are full of books of law; Paley, the enthu siast, who reads and notes cases- till two in the morning, " bringing a great intellect laboriously down to the comprehension of a mean subject"; and, of course, the two young men, Warrington and Pendennis, who live on the top floor, and are a trial to the sedate lawyers below. Arthur Pendennis was never meant to be a barrister-at-law. His love of pleasure and joviality " deterred him from pursuing his designs upon the bench or woolsack with the ardor, or rather steadiness, which is requisite in gentlemen who would climb to those seats of honor." So he becomes a journalist and popular novelist, and never appears in court in wig and gown. George Warrington, however, was different from Pen, to whom, indeed, we always preferred him. When we are first introduced to him, he has just been called to the bar and " knows law pretty well." He is a great contrast to the elegant, dandi fied Pendennis, for, when he first appears on the scene, he is sitting on the table, dressed in a ragged old shooting-jacket, unshaven, and smoking a short pipe. " He was drink
